The ILUCIDARE PLAYGROUND event explored the multifaceted contribution heritage makes to sustainable and inclusive societies to tackle societal challenges through innovation and to engage in multicultural dialogue. The event, one RegionArts could not miss, created a unique space for unconventional encounters sparking discussions, networking and exchanges. Empowering heritage professionals, researchers, innovators, policymakers, activists and volunteers in their innovative and collaboration practices, the event also ambitioned to make a contribution to aligning international and EU actions for heritage and international cultural relations.
Heritage as a cross-cutting enabler
The day kicked off with a keynote by Bonnie Burnham (Cultural Heritage Finance Alliance), defining heritage as a cross-cutting enabler for education, tourism, empowerment, economy, social cohesion, environmental action. She called for new management frameworks creating investable situations for heritage, oriented towards the fulfilment of sustainable development goals. Andrea Bartoli, who took the floor right after, shared the inspirational example of Farm Cultural Park, a community project at the historic heart of Favara (Sicily), showing how small communities brought a dilapidated town centre back to life. The edgy artistic project has resulted in sustainable local development as well as housing, education and regeneration prospects for the city.
Heritage as a resource for innovation
The first panel of innovators moderated by Julia Fallon (Europeana) explored heritage as common ground to drive social innovation, regional regeneration, skills development linking technology and people. Innovation is often confused with technology or physical products but it is much broader as recalled by the panellists, covering co-management processes, urban development, social innovation to make links with the community.
The discussion focused on:
- bottom-up heritage-led urban regeneration
- digital platforms linking tech, arts & heritage around a story
- community-based creative hubs
- linking crafts and contemporary design
Innovation panel ILUCIDARE: Julia Fallon (Europeana), Gaia Redaelli (PAX-Patios de la Axerquía), Charlotte Trigance (Studio Sherlock), Kristijan Šujević (Nova Iskra), Sergiu Ardelean (Artivive)
The workshops
The afternoon programme was jointly developed with 4 heritage-related projects Horizon 2020 projects: CLIC, ECHOES, RURITAGE and Rock provided their insights on heritage as a driver for entrepreneurship, the legacies of colonialism in heritage-led diplomacy initiatives, heritage-led rural and urban regeneration. The collaboration will continue with these projects to develop a joint White Paper for recommendations on cross-cutting themes such as innovation and entrepreneurship. Four well-attended workshops run in parallel to a very popular speed-networking session with morning speakers and members of the ILUCIDARE Advisory Board. The heritage diplomacy and international cooperation workshop looked at how to undertake heritage-led initiatives on the international scene: from needs assessment, memorandum of understanding/common grounds, shared ownership of the project and balanced power dynamics.
